ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

480BC Themistocles’s Greek fleet defeats the Persians under Xerxes I at the Battle of Salamis.

1011 Danish Viking raiders capture Canterbury after a siege, taking Aelfheah, archbishop of Canterbury, as a prisoner.

1227 Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, is excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX for his failure to participate in the Crusades.

1652 A group of whites at the Cape ascends Table Mountain for the first time, with Khoi-khoi chief Herry as guide.

1793 Tennis is first mentioned in an English sporting magazine.

1916 American oil tycoon John D Rockefeller becomes the world’s first billionaire.

1938 The Munich Agreement between Germany, the UK, France and Italy settles the Sudetenland dispute in Germany’s favour. The Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia are not invited.

1940 Two Avro Ansons of No 2 Service Flying Training School RAAF collide in mid-air over Brocklesby, New South Wales, remain locked together after colliding, and then land safely.

1942 South African troops land at Tulearon on the south-west coast of Madagascar, to support the East African force based at Antananarivo.

1956 Strong-arm leader in Nicaragua, President Anastasio Samoza is assassinated by gunmen. 1969 An earthquake hits the Western Cape, killing 11 people, leaving 1 000 homeless.

1990 The YF-22, forerunner of the F-22 Raptor – the world’s most advanced fighter jet, first flies. 1999 Gé Korsten, 71, popular SA tenor and actor, commits suicide in his Wilderness home.

2004 Studying fossilised micro-organisms from Barberton, Mpumalanga, scientists find evidence of life on earth from 3.4 billion years ago.

2004 The Burt Rutan Ansari X Prize entry Spaceshipone performs a successful space flight, the first of two required to win the prize.

2008 The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, the largest single-day point loss in its history.